With Covid-19 everything are different. The classes of my kids are not the usual face to face class that we’re familiar with. At first I let my kids used cellphones for their classes but the problem with cellphones is its limited screen size and features that is difficult for young kids to adapt with. It seems its difficult for them to learn from the small screen and there’s a situation that my kid was unable to perform a certain task that the teacher assigned to do because of the limitation of the gadget.
This is the reason why I decided to get a laptop for my elementary kids and of course because of limited budget I preferred to buy affordable laptops and I don’t care about its technical specifications. However, in my surprise I found this new cheap Acer laptop that I am really impressed with the specs and its price. I’m referring to the 11.6 inches Acer Travelmate B3. I bought it from a local supplier in our place that cost me only Php 12,995.00 (about USD 256) which is much cheaper compare to online shops like Lazada and Shopee that is worth about P15,999 (315 USD) or more.
The following are the specifications of Acer Travelmate B3 TMB311-31:
Processor: Intel Celeron N4120 1.10 GHz Quad-core (4 Core™)
Display: 11.6″ 1366 x 768 HD LED Resolution
Graphics: UHD Graphics 600
Memory: 4 GB DDR4 SDRAM
Storage: 128GB PCIe NVMe SSD
Network & Communication: IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Gigabit Ethernet
Built-in Devices: Microphone, 2 Speaker
Interface/Ports: HDMI, 2 USB Ports, RJ-45 Network Port
Software: Windows 10 Pro
Input Devices: TouchPad Pointing Device, Keyboard
Battery: 3 Cell Lithium Ion(Li-Ion) 12 Hours Max. Battery Run Time
Warranty: 2 Years Warranty
Based on the build when I use the laptop, its quite sturdy and a great upgrade to the cellphone used by my kid in his online class. The device seems durable and feel will last longer compared to the previous laptops I used in my lifetime. Of course it got lower specifications for users like me but it is more than enough for its purpose in the study of my kids. The system is very responsive and since its uses a solid state drive (SSD), it reads and write data fast. I bought a few years back a Php 27 thousand worth laptop and this laptop is far more capable than what I have bought. But of course that’s was a year that SSD is not a standard in laptops.
Regarding the warranty of the laptop, it got a 2-year warranty which indicates that Acer is very confident that their device can last for more than 2 years without any hardware issues. This is a good indication that we can expect more of this device. In connectivity, the affordable Acer Travelmate B3 laptop has a modern network communication both for Wifi and LAN connection. It uses the latest 802.11ac which is known for its speed in wireless connectivity and 1 Gigabit ethernet for wired connection. The speaker of the laptop is also impressive and seems really designed to have a clear sound that targets virtual classes. It is loud enough for kids to hear in a quite room and the mic is performing as expected.
I highly recommend this to parents who is looking for a laptop computer for their children to go with their online classes smoothly and effectively learn. Grade 1 to 12 and even college can use this as their primary gadget for their classes but I recommend that college students should get a much higher specs laptops due to the nature of their activities in college but of course it depends on the demand of the course that they are taking. From the official ad of Acer below, it shows that Travelmate series laptops were designed for demanding professional users and the B3 series was a tone down of the professional series but designed to cater the education sectors. So this laptop is expected to be very durable, reliable and worth of the money of the parents.
I actually planned to buy another laptop for my other kid but I was unlucky and all of their stocks were already sold. But I manage to buy another model of Travelmate which is surprisingly cheap too and features a touch screen interface. For my other kid, I got an Acer Travelmate Spin B3 which I will review on my next post. So if you want a cheap touch screen laptop then check my next review later.